Anime Review: Himawari Season 1

Himawari is the story of a girl, Himawari, who was rescued by a ninja and, therefore, decides to go to ninja school in order to learn how to protect her savior. Himawari only knows her savior by the tattoo on his neck, so when a teacher shows up at her school with the same marking, she decides that he is her savior and declares him her master. The problem is the teacher, Hayato, is not a ninja (or so it seems), but rather a teacher hired to teach general education. I suspect, though, that Hayato is a bad-ass. Like bad-asses in other anime he’s able to look like a clumsy bumbling idiot who luckily escapes from danger (Trigun and Trinity Blood for example). I think the closest the anime gets to admitting that Hayato is a bad-ass is during the last episode when he leads a group of good natured but misguided ninja children away from Himawari, thus giving her chance to escape from danger. It’s implied that he’s never reacted to the wayward ninjas actions because they posed no real threat, and Hayato so much as says that he was about to open a can of whoop-ass on the boys if Himawari hadn’t shown up to the scene at the end. There are also a few teasers about Hayato’s abilities in the episode involving the teacher who is a master of disguise. Underneath this there is some untold back story about Himawari’s origin which appear to have something to do with a science lab. There’s also some back story for Hayato, who is most likely not the ninja that rescued her, but rather he is a part of some secret organization and he was sent to keep an eye out on Himawari and the ninja school in general. But that’s just my speculation. Or he could be the savior ninja and the nice face he wears is just a disguise — saaa …

This anime feels like Ken Akamatsu-lite in that there’s a somewhat bumbling guy with hidden strength in the midst of some very strange young girls. I call it “lite” because the characters are not fully developed, the fan service is pretty well contained, and there is barely any sexual tension between the Hayato and Himawari. To me it felt as though Hayato regards Himawari as a daughter. This is okay and makes the show easy to digest. I think it would take some skill to make this full on Akamatsu-like.

I give this a 3/5 because it’s a likable enough show, even though it’s shallow. Hopefully, the second season of the show will have a story line to propel things forward.